The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) continues to crack down on Palestinian traders in Occupied Jerusalem despite the tough socio-economic conditions rocking the city.

Owner of the Abu Shukri restaurant, located in the Wad Street in the Old City, said the IOA slapped two fines of 450 shekels each just because the restaurant has two entrance doors.

He added that the Israeli occupation forces have frequently stormed the restaurant, sparking terror among the customers.

Member of the local charity library Khader Abu Hudwan also launched a cry for help over the arbitrary Israeli fines. “The Israeli municipal staff asked for the library’s signboard.

I replied that we have none because the library is not a private property and is an Islamic Awqaf property that has been there for 40 years.

But the Israeli officers paid no heed to such proofs and issued a fine of 475 shekels,” said Abu Hudwan.

Owner of the al-Taj restaurant in the Old City also said he was subjected to a fine of 470 shekels on allegations that he did not pay the signboard license.

Head of the Jerusalem Center for Socio-economic Rights, Ziad al-Hamouri, said such fines make part of an Israeli policy to crack down on Palestinian merchants in Occupied Jerusalem.

A few days earlier, the Israeli municipality ordered the Supreme Islamic Council to remove the signboard put on its headquarters in Bab al-Silsila and slapped a fine of 475 shekels on claims that the signboard violates the municipality’s instructions.

Israeli municipality of Jerusalem announced organizing a wine festival including drinking and dancing over the ruins of the Ma'man Allah Muslim cemetery next Wednesday and Thursday.

QPress Center for the Aqsa and Jerusalem affairs revealed that Israeli and international musical bands will participate in the festival which is going to serve 120 kinds of wine in the “independence” park which was established over 200 dunum of land of the Muslim cemetery which was earlier confiscated by Israel.

Israeli municipality made large-scale changes on the cemetery and transformed a part of it into a public park used for big ceremonies.

A recent report, published by Haaretz’s Amira Hass, claims that a large number of Palestinians are being targeted with live fire around the knee by soldiers, perhaps leaving them disabled for life, and reminds of the many others who have been injured in a similar way, during earlier raids.

The report describes the suffering of wounded youth, in the moment of getting shot or just following, as well as the physical suffering inflicted by shattered bones and “lucky” hits in the muscle, in several locations across the West Bank, including Deheisheh refugee camp and Al-Fawwar.

There are stories circulating through the camps that, during questioning, over the phone, or during nightly visits to houses in the area, Israeli officer Captain Nidal tells young people that there will be no martyrs but “all of you will end up on crutches.” Or, in another variation, “We’ll make you all disabled.”

In Hebron and Deheisheh, committees have been set up to care for the wounded. In many places, there’s a growing realization that the army is intensifying its use of live fire in confrontations with unarmed stone-throwers, and that the wounds inflicted are deliberately more severe.

It is said that there must be more than 100 people across the West Bank, including many minors, who have been crippled by the Israeli army over the last year. But, there is still no exchange of information or collation of data to confirm the seeming trend, according to the PNN.

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the higher Islamic commission in the holy city, has warned against an Israeli plan to build an aerial tramway track over the Old City of Jerusalem and Islamic waqf sites near the Aqsa Mosque.

"This project is one of those plans intended to impose a Jewish character on the occupied city of Jerusalem and obliterate its landmarks," Sheikh Sabri told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC).

He also described the project as an assault on awqaf lands known as 'Salawdaha' and said it would change the Islamic character of the entire southern area near the Aqsa Mosque.

"The remarks that were made by the head of the municipality (Nir Barkat) were clear. He wanted to confirm who owns sovereignty over the city and talked about the Mosque and Islamic waqf sites.

It is known to everyone that Jerusalem, according to international law, is an occupied city and the occupation has no right to change the city's landmarks and affect its holy sites," the Palestinian religious figure underscored.

"The project is illegal and must be stopped.

We will never recognize any such change or step to be taken by the occupation authorities in Jerusalem city," he added. In recent remarks, Barkat said that the "Jews' ties to Jerusalem can never be unraveled," stressing that the cable-car project would serve not just economic and tourism needs, but also ideological goals.

Jerusalem’s planned cable cars will include a stop in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, so that riders will "understand who really owns this city," Barkat told Likud party activists recently.

Israeli soldiers shot, on Friday, five Palestinians with rubber-coated steel bullets, at the western entrance of Silwad town, east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, during the funeral procession of a Palestinian who was killed by the soldiers a few hours earlier.

Local sources in Silwad said hundreds of Palestinians participated in the funeral of Eyad Hamed, who was killed by the soldiers at noon, at the western entrance of the town, after the army initially claimed “he attempted to attack the soldiers,” and later retracted his false allegations.

The sources added that the soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets, sponge-tipped bullets and gas bombs at dozens of Palestinians, and cars, participating in the funeral procession, five Palestinians were injured and many cars were damaged.

Israel's antiquities authority has revealed that it built a 580-meter tunnel stretching underground from the southwestern corner of the Aqsa Mosque to Ein Silwan district.

According to Qpress website on Tuesday, a recent report released by the Israeli antiquities authority said the tunnel was funded by the right-wing settler group Ir David Foundation, known locally as Elad.

The report noted that the construction of this tunnel started in July 2013 and ended in late 2014.

In previous reports issued between 2008 and 2015, the Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage (closed and banned by the Israeli government) had revealed several secret tunnel diggings in different locations extending underground from the central area of Silwan district to al-Maghariba Gate of the Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have been closing two of three entrances to Hizma town, northeast of Occupied Jerusalem, for about one month.

The closure of these entrances has obstructed the movement of the residents and affected them economically.

However, the Israeli army claims that its forces have closed one entrance to the town and sometimes close another one as a measure to prevent stone-throwing attacks on Jewish settlers and their vehicles.

Spokesman for Hamoked center for the defense of the individual Yadin Elam condemned the Israeli army's justification for its measure as reprehensible and unrealistic.

"There is no connection between the goal of reducing stone-throwing incidents and the closure of entrances to Hizma town," Elma stated in a letter addressed to central command chief Roni Numa.

"This closure is punishment against 8,000 citizens living in the town, although most of them have nothing to do with stone-throwing events," he added.

The Arab League, on Tuesday, condemned the recent Israeli army’s shelling of several different locations in the Gaza Strip, and the damage incurred on Palestinian property.

Deputy Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Ben Helli called on the international community to immediately intervene and put an end to what he described as “Israel’s arrogance”.

He said that Israel is carrying out a new and deliberate violation, every now and then, and spreading fear among Palestinians while maintaining its brutal blockade of the Strip.

Ben Helli said, “Commissioner General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Pierre Krähenbühl will visit the Arab League early September, where he will present a report on UNRWA’s work and the crisis it is going through.”

The official said that Israel chose the timing to provoke Palestinians. The air strikes took place on the 47th anniversary of Al-Aqsa Mosque Arson.

“Al-Aqsa Mosque not only matters to 10 million Palestinians or 150 million Arabs, but to 300 million Muslims around the world,” he explained.

The Arab League, he said, along with the Arab and Muslim countries, is in a diplomatic battle in all international forums; the United Nations and UNESCO, to retrieve Palestinians rights and end the occupation.

He hoped, according to WAFA, that the active countries in the Security Council and the international community will have an important role in realizing the dangerous acts of Israel and the danger of instability in the Middle East.

“The Palestinian cause shall always remain the base and the key to achieve security and stability in the region; something that the international community must realize before it is too late,” he added.

As 47 years have passed by, Palestinian MPs gathered at the headquarters of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in Gaza on Monday to mark the anniversary of the notorious arson attack on the holy al-Aqsa Mosque.

PLC First Deputy Speaker, Dr. Ahmad Bahar, called on the Arab and Islamic governments, along with the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to take up their historic, moral, and religious responsibilities in defending Muslims’ the holy al-Aqsa Mosque against Israel’s division and demolition schemes.

He called for propping up political and financial support for Occupied Jerusalem and for boosting Jerusalemites’ steadfastness in the face of the current tide of Israeli terrorism.

PLC First Deputy Speaker vowed that the Palestinian resistance will forever stand in the forefront in the national liberation struggle. “The Israeli policy of ethnic cleansing aims at wiping out Jerusalem’s Islamic identity and dislocating its native inhabitants,” Dr. Bahar stated.

He also noted that the Israeli illegal settlement activity around Occupied Jerusalem and West Bank provinces represent flagrant violations to the UN resolutions and laws.

Chairman of the Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Committee at the PLC, MP Ahmad Abu Halabiyeh, urged the Palestinian factions to reactivate resistance, particularly in its armed form, and fan the flames of the ongoing anti-occupation Jerusalem Intifada until the liberation of the Holy al-Aqsa and Occupied Jerusalem.

He called on the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces to stop harassment against anti-occupation activists, cease all forms of security coordination with the Israeli occupation, and sue Israeli war criminals at international courts for their crimes against the al-Aqsa and Occupied Jerusalem.

Abu Halabiyeh urged the Arab League, OIC, and Arab parliaments to assume their duties in support of Jerusalem’s holy sites and sit-inners.

The MP also appealed to the international community, human rights institutions, and Human Rights Council to opt for an anti-Israel standpoint and speak up against Israeli division schemes at the al-Aqsa.

He further warned of ongoing Israeli excavations and tunnel network beneath al-Aqsa using chemicals to break up the foundation rocks.

The MP spoke out against Israeli arson attacks and aggressions on the Mosque, recalling attempts to burn the prayer rug in the Dome of the Rock place of worship and the attempt by Israeli warplanes to bombard the Mosque a couple of years and ago as instances of such aggressions.

Forty-seven years ago, the Jewish Australian tourist Denis Michael Rohan set fire to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem. The arson attack was one of several assaults on the site since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

In April 1982, an Israeli soldier indiscriminately opened fire on Muslim worshipers inside the Mosque, killing two and wounding six others. In October of 1990, Israeli police killed 21 Palestinians and injured scores during clashes that erupted when Israeli extremists tried to place the foundation stone of an alleged Jewish temple inside the Mosque's compound.

Palestinian governor of Jerusalem Adnan al-Husseini said that the arson attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969 is still continuous today because of Israeli ceaseless crimes.

The arson which affected 25% to 30% of the southeast area of the Muslims’ holy site in 1969 was not carried out by an individual; it rather was conducted by systematic planning, he said.

In an exclusive statement to the PIC, Husseini pointed out that the arson after 47 years of renovating the Aqsa has transformed into different facets including Israeli violations which include excavations under the Aqsa Mosque, detaining and killing of Palestinians in the al-Aqsa compound, allowing Israeli extremists to storm al-Aqsa, and demolishing Palestinian homes in Occupied Jerusalem.

He referred to the Israeli incursions into the Aqsa which started in 2000 then dramatically increased for the sake of taking over the holy site to be followed by a new stage declared by Israeli authorities a few days ago that the Aqsa Mosque is going to be knocked down in three years for the construction of the alleged Temple of Solomon.

Husseini said that “the inability to solve the Palestinian issue until now hints at the dereliction towards the Palestinian cause and the lack of awareness of the dangers faced by the al-Aqsa Mosque and the entire Palestinian Question.”

Unity of Umma and Honour of Harmain Shareefain conference in Islamabad condemned the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people and the Aqsa Mosque.

Speakers at the conference demanded Muslim countries’ leaders to liberate the Aqsa Mosque.

The conference which was organized by Markazi Jamiat Ahlehadith (MJAH)-Pakistan on Sunday at convention Center in Islamabad called for the unity of Muslim Umma in order to solve all issues and challenges faced by Muslim countries and peoples.

Leader of political and religious parties, diplomats, and a large number of activists of religious organizations participated in the conference.

The gathering fully supported and backed up the freedom movement of the people of Palestine, and condemned the interference of other countries in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain.

The conference also condemned the undemocratic attempt to change the elected government of Turkey and appreciated the role of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in serving his country.

It also condemned terrorism and called for fighting the terrorist parties and organizations that threaten the Umma. They condemned the terrorist attack at al-Masjid al-Nabawi in the city of Madina in Saudi Arabia as well as Indian persecution of Muslims in Kashmir.

The conference unanimously announced the establishment of the platform of “Difa Harmeen Movement”. It was said there is a hard need to strengthen this platform. And, this platform will highlight the importance of haramain shareefain in the hearts of the people of Pakistan.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has emphasized that the safety and inviolability of the Islamic holy sites, especially the Aqsa Mosque, in Occupied Jerusalem are very important for the establishment of peace and security in the entire region.

"Israel, as an occupying power, bears full responsibility for the safety of all holy places under its unjust occupation," the OIC stated in a press release on the 47th Aqsa fire anniversary.

"International treaties and conventions, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibits the occupation state from assaulting places of worship, guarantees free access to them and bans any occupying power from creating geographic and demographic changes or abusing historical places," the Islamic Organization added.

It called on the international community to work on forcing Israel, as an occupying entity, to abide by the principles of international law and resolutions and to end its occupation of Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.

It also called for immediate international action curbing Israel's persistent violations and Judaization activities against the Palestinian Islamic and Christian holy sites.

The Hamas Movement has renewed its vow to continue its struggle against the Israeli occupation until sweeping it away from the entire Palestinian land and holy sites.

"Israel's crimes against our people and holy places will only strengthen our determination not to recognize its entity or cede a single grain of our soil," Hamas stated Sunday on the 47th anniversary of the arson attack on the Aqsa Mosque.

"The Aqsa Mosque is in our hearts, and our faithful hearts will never burn…the Aqsa Mosque will remain the title of our dignity and the secret behind the continuance of our struggle," the Movement underscored.

Head of Hamas's political bureau Khaled Mishaal has said that the Israeli occupation army is unable to defeat the Gaza Strip despite its military superiority and huge arsenal of weapons.

Mishaal's remarks came in a recorded speech delivered during a ceremony held on Saturday in Gaza City to honor memorizers of the holy Qur'an.

The Hamas leader said the people's adherence to the great Islamic values and the option of preparation and resistance helped Gaza to become high in stature, and described Gaza as a "strong wall against all plots."

He expressed his belief that the victory against the occupation can be achieved through a "combination of Qur'an and resistance."

He also applauded what he described as the "heroes of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque" for the sacrifices they have made to defend their holy places.

Al-Quds International Institution has warned that the Aqsa Mosque continues to face major dangers threatening its existence in light of Israel's persistent attempts to divide it between Muslims and Jews and control it.

This came in a statement released on Saturday by al-Quds International on the 47th anniversary of the arson attack on the Aqsa Mosque.

"Jerusalem and its Aqsa Mosque are facing an existential war aimed at obliterating the Arab-Islamic identity and imposing a Zio-Jewish identity in its place,"

the Palestinian foundation underlined. It accused the Israeli government of attempting to divide the Mosque temporally and spatially between Muslims and Jews, to force the Jordanian awqaf authority to accept an Israeli role in administering its affairs.

It said that the strong presence of Muslims from Jerusalem and the 1948 occupied lands at the Aqsa Mosque foiled all Israel's plots, stressing that the Mosque would remain an Islamic holy site in its entirety and would never be shared or divided.